1. Technical Field
Embodiments generally relate to electronic circuits and, more specifically, to a system for testing or attacking an integrated circuit by optical means.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
In electronics, security modules (for example, bank chip cards, subscriber identification units, etc.) are circuits containing data which are desired to be kept confidential or, at least, which are desired to have a controlled distribution. Such data, for example, are encryption algorithm keys, authentication or identification codes, etc., or even algorithms implemented for the encryption, the authentication, or the identification. A security module defines an electronic circuit for securely executing applications and guaranteeing the security (secret/integrity) of data manipulated by such applications.
Many techniques that may be implemented by hackers or attackers intending to discover the secrets contained in these circuits are known. Among the most current attacks, the attacker attempts to cause an error in the circuit manufacturing, be it to generate a trap in the program executed by the circuit or to force values taken by certain bits. Such attacks known as fault-injection attacks are carried out in multiple ways, for example, by disturbing the circuit power supply, a clock signal, etc. Such attacks may be interpreted in various ways, for example by side channels (by analyzing the power consumption of the electronic circuit when it executes the algorithms, or its electromagnetic radiation, or directly signals provided by the circuit).
Among fault injection attacks, embodiments relate to attacks exploiting laser beams disturbing the circuit operation with their rays. Such attacks have become increasingly accurate as the laser beam focusing capacity increases, and presently enable to direct a sufficiently thin and accurate beam onto a logic gate, or even a transistor, to cause its state switching.
The very existence of such attack requires for manufacturers to be able to test the resistance of the circuits that they manufacture against such attacks and, regarding laser attacks, the tests amount to implementing the attack on a circuit and making sure that this attack does not enable to discover the secret of the circuit.
The bulk of laser devices as compared with the size of the circuit makes it currently difficult to carry out attacks with multiple beams. Now, more and more, buyers and distributors of such circuits require for them to be protected against multiple-beam attacks.
There thus is a need for a test bench or attack bench, capable of simultaneously sending several laser beams to different locations of an electronic circuit.